stolen from an email to my aunt

Today I am home with a sick boy. Benjamin was home alone yesterday and sicker than I realized. Worrying about a sick kid is not good for productivity especially as yesterday was a day I kept seeing stories about people dying of the H1N1. What he has doesn't seem like that. More like either migraine or a viral thing. Kaiser almost had me bring him in last night in concern over dehydration. That's one reason I am home, so I can encourage liquid consumption. He seemed to be doing better today - retaining liquid taken in small amounts until I made myself some lunch and the smell roused his nausea again. Some help I am!

Not getting much else done either. I am trying to figure out a better bookkeeping system so that I can know how much money I have, how much is already committed and how much I have left in each budgeted item. It sounds simple enough, but, well, I need a better way. Currently I
am pretty good at knowing how much of my budgeted allotment I have spent and figuring that means overall I am ok, but not knowing exactly where I stand. Needs work. As the budget tightens and reserve drains, this becomes less acceptable. All those college accounting classes and I am sill pretty hopeless!

I just got approval to take Governmental Auditing. One of my co-workers encouraged me so we can be study buddies. We were unable to recruit a third and another couple of the old team have left the office. : ( This time the State will go halves with us. Pay half and give us half the time. So I either will be working late to make up time or burning up all my vacation as fast as I earn it. I think I will be making up time. Last time, it was State time and my dime. I appreciate the help!

Today the car is in the shop. I dropped it off and biked home to my boy instead of biking on in to work. Brake work to the tune of about $500. Biking is not saving me money either. I think it must be costing me as much or more in bike maintenance as it costs me to commute although I think that is getting better. Biking isn't about money (although that would be nice), it is about health and quiet time.

Too much money talk! I am doing fine. Better off than a lot of people I know. I just have to be careful. I count my blessings.

I have been riding my bike to work a good month now and am MAYBE losing OUNCES. I tell myself that slow weight loss is best. I don't know what I am going to do when school starts - all too soon! - and Benjamin has early morning religion class. We are even talking about him biking there so I have time to bike to work, but that makes me uncomfortable. MAYBE I can manage to bike if he leaves promptly. (HA! usually one of the last out) Or I could drive him and his bike to church and let him bike home which for some reason doesn't seem as bad as having him bike both ways. Go figure. Still thinking. Of course, neither of us will bike in bad weather unlike Joseph who bikes year round.

The night before we left for SLO, we were at Ruth's for a combined Debi & Esther birthday dinner. We had to dress up Fancy Nancy style. what fun! Ruth put pictures on her blog "Red Hot Mama" (links in the right hand margin)

I need to get back to my "bookkeeping"